This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

For decades, American political conventions have been little more than shiny television infomercials.

The presidential nominee predetermined, the party buries the divisions of the primary season, pats itself on the back and rallies around the new leader in a rose-coloured-glasses view of its political future.

Not this time.

Yes, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee at the national Republican convention beginning Monday in Cleveland, but beyond that little is certain.

Here is a spectator’s guide to the week’s activities:

Article Continued Below

Schedule

Monday: 1 p.m. start. Some delegate voting; evening to reportedly focus on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Tuesday: 5:30 p.m. Expected to focus on the economy; official presidential nomination expected.

Wednesday: 7 p.m. Highlight is typically a speech by the vice-presidential nominee.

Thursday: 7:30 p.m. The presidential nominee usually closes the convention.

Who is missing?

The Bushes: Former Republican presidents George Sr. and George W. will not darken America’s North Coast this week. Nor indeed will also-ran brother Jeb, whose body still bears fresh tread marks of the Trump Primary Steamroller.

The formerlys: Trump will get the Republican baton, but it will not be passed by either of the men who held it most recently. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 election to Barack Obama (despite Trump’s endorsement), has publicly repudiated Trump. Likewise, Sen. John McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008, says he will avoid Cleveland to focus on campaigning to save his own seat in Arizona.

The host: The RNC involves a special kind of awkward for John Kasich, whose duties as Ohio governor include helping oversee security for Trump’s coming-out party. After dropping out of the presidential race in May, Kasich now indicates he’ll be active on the periphery in Cleveland — not there, as such (and definitely not there for Trump), but not far away either. The broad impression is that of a politico looking to inject a sliver of life into a possible do-over presidential run in 2020.

Speeches

House Speaker Paul Ryan has frequently criticized Donald Trump's outrageousness. He is expected to speak at the convention, if not eagerly. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Speaker Paul Ryan, who disagrees with Trump on just about every major issue, will speak for 10 minutes on the un-Trump-like House Republican agenda he’s trying to keep from the dustbin.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Trump a narcissistic pathological liar in the last rant of his campaign, will try to position himself for the 2020 nomination race.

Expect a quiet speech from neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a loud speech from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iraq veteran, will get a prime-time platform.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is also reportedly on the agenda, as is former college football star Tim Tebow, Ultimate Fighting president Dana White and pro golfer Natalie Gulbis.

Protest watch

Trump's speeches during the Republican primaries sparked an unusually vigorous protest movement. The dissent is expected to be a key storyline at next week's national convention.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Barely anyone bothered to protest Mitt Romney’s coronation in Tampa four years ago. Trump being Trump, activists are now planning a show of force. Dozens of groups have been granted permits to march downtown streets, set up tables in two designated parks or speak from an official “speakers’ platform.”

There is real potential for conflict. Trump supporters including Bikers for Trump say they will also be present, and unsanctioned agitators like the anarchist Black Bloc may show up too. Officials have set strict protest rules — all marches must follow a set route, last less than an hour and be finished before nightfall — but they’re preparing to be ignored.

Anti-poverty, anti-war, feminist and racial justice groups have all scheduled demonstrations. The 40-organization Coalition to Stop Trump will hold a large march on the first day.

Pivot vs. pirouette

Trump is capable of behaving himself. But probably not for long. (John Sommers II/GETTY IMAGES)

Pity the Pivot Watchers, that shrinking portion of the GOP faithful that remains certain Donald Trump any minute now will drink the conventional-campaign Kool-Aid and, well, behave.

Fact is, Trump’s been playing footsie with the pivot since March, when he memorably stifled his improvisational self and read from a TelePrompTer for the first time in a speech to the pro-Israel AIPAC conference. The result of his team-vetted address: multiple standing ovations.

So yes, Trump can pivot. But perhaps not for long. Once in motion, Trump has yet to demonstrate the ability to stop himself from completing the full-circle pirouette back to unscripted, unpresidential outrage.

Key players behind the scenes

Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was originally hired as a delegate-wrangling convention guru. Though the contested convention didn’t end up being contested, he’s still the guy who’ll have to keep his erratic candidate on the rails for a few especially big days.

Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband and a real estate scion himself, has become perhaps Trump’s most trusted adviser, with a hand in everything from speech writing to social media.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican party, will do his best to ensure a divided party leaves Cleveland feeling a little more united.

Ghosts of conventions past

You have to go all the way back to the ’30s — the 1830s — to find the roots of the American political convention. That’s when the little-known Anti-Mason Party invented the format with a first-ever convention in Baltimore dedicated to opposing the secretive clout Freemasonry wielded over politics and business.

Other parties quickly seized upon the idea and for the next 140 years, conventions percolated with nation-shaping, winner-take-all intrigue.

That all fell away in the 1970s, as the modern-day state-by-state primary system took hold as a way for candidates to secure the party’s nomination ahead of the big quadrennial gathering — leaving the conventions themselves as de facto coronations, full of speeches, bereft of important decisions (i.e. the 2012 RNC in Tampa, all but forgotten but for the spectacle of Clint Eastwood in conversation with an empty chair).

Star power

There's a chance Tom Brady could make an appearance. (Steven Senne/AP)

Republican conventions are reliably less glamorous than Democratic conventions, and Trumpapalooza will be no exception. The master showman, seeking to make the convention less “boring,” said star quarterback Tom Brady might show up, but he won’t, and said he might invite tennis champ Serena Williams, who is obviously not coming.

Star-spotting delegates will have to settle for a motley crew of sports figures, most famously former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.

And they can ditch the boring politics stuff for concerts by Journey, Rascal Flatts and Martina McBride, which are not officially part of the convention.

Security

American political history is littered with memorable and messy conventions. There was that time in 1860 when the Democrats came up empty in Charleston, S.C., amid bitter divisions over slavery, with southern delegates walking away unable to agree on a nominee. Civil war was just around the corner.

And that time in 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt’s loyalists engineered an unprecedented third term for the president, who would soon take the United States into an already raging world war against Hitler’s Germany.

In Cleveland, the worries about the potential for fresh hell are extending to events outside the convention hall, awakening memories of Chicago, circa 1968, where the traumatic spectacle of anti-Vietnam war protesters in full battle with police played out on TVs across the nation.

Security planning has been underway for months and so too has planning by a wide range of pro- and anti-Trump groups. A U.S. District Court judge threw a wrench into those plans in June, shrinking the security bubble by half to open more space for demonstrators.

The new spasm of national fury over last week’s killings by and of U.S. police officers and the fact that Ohio is an open-carry state makes the coming days in Cleveland potentially more armed and dangerous than previously imagined.

Dissent watch

This won’t be the contested convention the party’s Trump opponents wanted. But there might still be contention.

A contingent of anti-Trump delegates, many of them Ted Cruz supporters, may well express their dissent by refusing to vote for his vice-presidential pick.

And at least one delegate, Arizona’s Lori Hack, has said she plans to refuse to fulfil her obligation to abide by the result of her state primary and vote for Trump for president.

Look for the #NeverTrump crew to attempt to express its dismay in some visible way.

The sideshow

“The party of the year,” the host committee said, and that’s true if you’re a conservative somebody: Republicans with connections or corporations will get to attend some of the dozens of lavish private bashes, most of them hosted by companies and industry groups trying to lobby them. Even the national school board lobby is getting into the act, according to USA Today, with a “dessert reception” at a “chocolate and martini bar.”

There will be at least a bit of Cleveland fun for regular people. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is offering free admission. And good news for despondent anti-Trumpers: the state legislature has extended last call from 2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m.

They said it

Freshly-announced running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says Trump is "someone who has connected with everyday Americans like no one since Ronald Reagan.” (Andres Kudacki/AP)

“I would rather attend the public hanging of a good friend.”

— Will Ritter, a Republican digital strategist who worked on the three previous conventions but is skipping this one

“People in this state have a right to open carry (guns). There’s a 2nd amendment to the Constitution, we understand that and our officers are prepared. They’re used to seeing that in downtown Cleveland for different events.”

— Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams

“We’re anticipating a victory dance, but it sounds like there’s a lot of agitators and a lot of troublemakers coming to town.”

— Chris Cox of the group Bikers for Trump

“I think he (Trump) is going to be a great president. I think he is someone who has connected with everyday Americans like no one since Ronald Reagan.”

— Indiana Gov. Mike Pence

“Trump is a sick sociopath. He has no conscience. No feelings of guilt, remorse, empathy or embarrassment ... He has severe personality disorders and is not fit to be president.”

— Gordon Humphrey former New Hampshire senator and convention delegate

All caught up? Print out a bingo card and play along during the convention.

Correction - July 19, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that included a photo of former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow misidentified as current NFL quarterback Tom Brady

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com